Improbable Events
by 049 Faithless Observer
Summary: Wrote this to clear my head. This is why Rei isn't allowed near Manga. Not really any pairings yet, just going to let it ride.
1. Chapter 1

You know the Gyst, I don't own anything to do with Evangelion, I wish I did but then the entire series would terninto an uber spam fic and everybody would hateit. Ohandby psychological anaylses of why I do this it's merely to stoke my own ego due to frustration I experience in real life. Huh . . . I guess the psychology really does make fanfic writing seam depressing . . . meh . ..oh well.

Prologue: Yuki Soldier

Tokyo-3 was a major city in every sense of the word, the population despite the Angel attacks driving people away, was still large due to thousands of people employed by NERV. The support infrastructure for the fortress city was awesome and its population was ever busy. It was in this environment that Rei Ayanami slipped out from the alleyway, walking quickly, she carried only a small brown bag which she quickly tucked into her satchel. Her contact had gotten what she had requested, an especially difficult acquisition, but well worth the money. Rei was well aware how hard it was to acquire what sat in the small bag which betrayed no hint of its contents.

It had started innocently enough, the first time, it had been right there on the subway chair she was sitting next to. She had starred at if for a long time, before on a rare impulse she picked it up out of curiosity. It wasn't like anyone was coming back for it. She had seen other children do it, so it couldn't be that bad. She had assumed it would simply be a waste of time and she would soon be able to disregard it. But after her first time she couldn't stop . . . She went over the feeling it gave her again and again. She couldn't understand what drew her to it.

She reached her apartment and went dashing up the four flights of stairs to her apartment. Quickly pulling the key to the new lock from her pocket. Commander Ikari had not been suspicious when she had asked for the lock, he hadn't even known it was broken in the first place. The only reason she had even asked for a lock was to protect her stash, as it were.

Walking quickly over to her bed she sat down pulled off her shoes and socks before flopping down heavily on the mattress. She pulled the bag once more from her satchel and paused, hand poised. _This sensation_ . . . Rei thought curiously, it felt like her stomach was crawling about inside her in anticipation of what she was about to lay eyes upon. She steeled herself, this was one of her only pleasures, the Commander had not disapproved, but then he didn't know, didn't need to know, she wasn't hurting the scenario by doing this. It did not adversely affect her, she could stop whenever she wanted, other people did this . . .

She pulled her acquisition from the small bag, eyes began distant as she as she lost herself in her addiction.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Kensuke Aida continued to count the bills as he whistled to himself. He didn't mind being a source for other people. He made plenty of money getting such a rare commodity into the hands of those who could truly understand the joy it brought, he had been very surprised when he found one Rei Ayanami as a customer, and she wanted something a lot more exotic then the usual stuff. Something in very short supply, it had taken his network weeks to make a reasonable acquisition on something so unusual. He knew of course that he could get in trouble with the law for what he did. Unlicensed resale was illegal after all.

_Who would have thought Rei had a thing for Yuki Soldier Manga . . . Well, getting Volume twelve took me a while, but it was worth it. _He continued to count the bills, for such a rare acquisition Rei had paid three times as much as the comic had originally cost, admittedly it had been in beautiful condition and Rei seemed like the kind of person to be trusted to take care of such items. _Its kinda weird seeing her do something normal like read Manga . . . I never thought she was such a military Otaku either . . . She's asked for a lot of military manuals. Hmmm . . . She always seems to be in a daze when she requests military books . . . But it's not like it does any harm . . ._ Kensuke had know idea how wrong he was.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Sighing contentedly Rei carefully placed her new acquisition in the special plastic sleeve she had purchased for it. She didn't want any of her growing collection to get damaged and she always treated them with infinite care. This volume had completed the Praetorian arc, the second arc in the series and with another one hundred and eighty volumes to collect , Rei saw no end in sight. She took the book to her closet and carefully opened it, getting on her hands and knees she pulled a pair of old shirts off of her hoard. Her collection of carefully preserved Yuki Soldier Manga sat stacked inside a make shift book shelf at the back of the closet. Along with it were four other acquisitions she had made, the Commander did not care what she used her credit card for as long as she didn't charge anything too extravagant and the money she had used was set aside in a private account so he would never be the wiser about this unusual addiction.

The first item was a twelve inch replica of the Type-88 titan Yuki had fought against in Volume three, its four red eyes looked cruelly down from its position atop the small bookshelf upon the older Type-74 Yuki had piloted in her fight against it, the noble machine's single Cyclops eye glared back up defiantly.

One of theothers was aPVC model of the Manga's primary antagonist, Adam Ralson the Commander of the secret paramilitary organization Messiah. The figurine starred into the distance sternly, 9mm semi automatic poised in one hand gloved.

Standing next to the first figure was the figurine of the series protagonist, Yuki Toyama, an escaped experiment turned heroin who seemed to overcome her social and emotional shortcomings despite hardship and embarrassment. The figurine showed her in a classic pose holding one of her trademark machine pistols in her left hand and a combat knife in the other. Her black and blue jacket hung from her frail shoulders, back arched, blue eyes narrowed behind a pair of protective goggles, teeth gritted, short brown hair whipped in an imaginary wind.

Looking between figurine and girl there was remarkable resemblance. It had occurred to Rei that she may have been sympathetic towards a fictional character. She didn't see the problem with that, it didn't hurt anything, finding points of similarity between her own origins and circumstances, and those of a fictional character would not adversely affect the scenario.

With this in mind Rei went to lay down, it was still quite early but she had felt tired over the last few nights as though she had not been sleeping enough. Sleep claimed her quickly that night and in moments her breathing became slow and deep. In the darkness the dreary little apartment was almost peaceful as soft moonlight flooded in through the window to paint a small patch of gently light across the sleeping figure.

Rei's eyes snapped open suddenly seeming to shift in and out of focus until a consciousness finally took control, getting up quickly she looked about and nodded to herself. It was time to get to work. The first thing she did was grab the spare satchel from its place beside the front door. Quickly heading into the bathroom she got ready. None constricting clothes were best, protection would be nice but if she got caught on a job she was screwed anyway. She looked at herself curiously in the mirror, it was subconscious on Rei's part as she began to put on her clothes, as her clothes changed her body changed as well. Not significantly, but the differences were enough.

She absently brushed aside a strand of rapidly darkening hair as she finished dressing and looked at herself in the mirror. Deep blue eyes looked back, she nodded quietly as she turned and left the small bathroom turning off the light as she went. She withdrew the machine pistol she had smuggled from a NERV armory in one of her trances never realizing what she was doing as she made of the acquisitions that led to this. Sliding a twelve inch long combat knife into its sheath across her back she slipped from the apartment without alerting the Section Two agents and made her way towards NERV.

The streets were dark as she sprinted quickly heading towards a GeoFront entrance, she chose one well away from her residence. It took an hour and a half to find the entrance her eyes narrowed slightly as she considered possibly entry methods and then nodded. There was an emergency entrance system that could be used, if one knew there way it was child's play to evade NERV's security.

With an ease born of hours of practice the pale now fully brown haired girl worked the action on her machine pistol. "Enemy of humanity, Gendo Ikari . . . You have hidden yourself well, but I will discover your dark secrets. The darkness that you have brought to this city has made you my enemy." The girl smiled evilly. "You really shouldn't have done that." At that moment it could be seen in girl's eyes that Rei Ayanami was not at the moment present. No, the mind that now plotted a war against an enemy so much like her own past tormentors could only be identified, would only be identified as . . . Yuki . . . Toyama . . .


	2. Volume 1

NO I HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN ABOUT UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT I'VE JUST HAD WAY TO MUCH FRICKIN SCHOOL WORK AND I KEEP LOTS OF SPARE IDEAS ON MY COMPUTER WHICH I POST WHENEVER I'M IN ONE OF MY MOODS. IF I UPLOADED THEM ALL AT ONCE I WOULD HAVE HALF A DOZEN INCOMPLETE STORIES AND BELIEVE ME A LOT OF THEM ARE REEEEEAAALLLLLY STUPID AND THAT'S COMING FROM THEIR AUTHOR. -cough- Now then to turn the rest over to Rei and Ruri.

-Dual Monotones- 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . Kaboom. Welcome to another volume of Naze Nani Fanfiction.

Ruri in overalls- As usual the author does not own Evangelion or any of its associated characters or media.

Rei in bunny suit- All Evangelion related media is the property of Gainax studios. Any illegal use of Gainax Copyrighted materials will lead to termination of the offender with extreme prejudice.

-Both Speaking- We thank you for your cooperation in upholding copyright laws.

Chapter One- Volume 1

"Report." Commander Gendo Ikari said as he gazed upon the ruins of a GeoFront life support module. Pale red coolant was all over the place, dripping from the pressure warped pipes and forming syrupy discolored puddles across the floor. Hazardous material teams were already busy cleaning the mess up but it would be several days before repairs could commence. The system was redundant of course, this was one of many dozens of self contained units responsible for maintaining the environment within the massive subterranean facility.

"The damage was relatively minor." Doctor Ritsuko Akagi said behind him. "But it seems it was meant more as a diversion to allow our attacker to access the MAGI. From what we've been able to put together from footage the Attacker set off a C4 shaped charge on the control system for the life support unit, this overrode the safeties and allowed pressure to build in the heat exchange unit. By the time security got here the system had already burst. Within thirty minutes most of the on station Section Two agents were in this area at which time a second charge was set off on bakelite pump number twenty seven, sealing all of the primary hallways between this sector and the northeast section of NERV. From there the attacker accessed the MAGI and downloaded multiple files."

"What kind of files?" Gendo asked dangerously. There was a great deal of data within the MAGI, must of it was in fact harmless, but a few files were quite secret, buried beneath layers of firewalls and encryption, and needed to remain that way.

"Well. We're . . . Not sure." Ritsuko admitted, it appears that our attacker new exactly what they were dealing with, they had a Command level software override so Casper covered their trail for them. This would have to have been an inside job, only fifty people in all of Japan know those overrides."

"And most of them are accounted for." Sub Commander Fuyutsuki added as he observed the wreckage. "The rest couldn't even be in Tokyo-3. However they got those codes we'll need to find our leak and plug it."

"Yes." Gendo agreed, "Fuyutsuki, have Sections Two and Four increase their patrols, I don't want a repeat of this. We will have to reset the security pass keys as well, inform me when the system is ready to accept a new override, Doctor."

Both of his subordinates nodded in unison. "Should we inform the Major and pilots about this?" Fuyutsuki asked.

Gendo's gaze turned back to the ruins of the life support module. "No, this is not their concern." He said finally, "Whoever our attacker was they most likely were not interested in the pilots."

"Very well Ikari." Fuyutsuki said as he turned to leave.

Gendo meanwhile was deep in thought. If someone else had learnt of Casper's backdoors did that mean that still other's might know? And what if that wasn't the only thing they knew. His discomfort rose as he realized just how vulnerable his position was at that moment. _This problem will have to be neutralized. _He decided finally, until then he had other matters to attend to.

Rei let out a small groan as she opened her eyes. That was unusual, but then she'd never felt this much pain without being injured before. Her entire body was stiff and soar and she felt exhausted as if she had been up half the night.

Not letting it bother her she rolled out of bed slowly and headed for the shower. The cold water only made her feel worse as muscles knotted painfully but she pushed the pain aside and went through her morning rituals before turning off the shower and drying herself off. Glancing at herself in the mirror, red eyes starred back.

She continued out of her bathroom and dressed quickly in her school uniform, frowning as she noted her spare satchel lying next to her bed. She normally left it by the door, but it wasn't in the way regardless. She disregarded it and continued to get ready.

The walk to school was uneventful as always but she noted curiously that Section Two had agents standing guard at a relay station that was on her route from her apartment to school. That was indeed strange but not overly so. It was most likely none of her business, if it was the Commander would tell her about it.

She got to school early and quietly went about her normal routine, sitting down on a bench and reading from her history book she didn't want to risk brining any of her collection to school for fear of it being damaged or worse stolen. There was also the fact that the other children might start talking if they knew the "Blue haired freak" was doing something out of the ordinary. Rei fully understood how cruel human beings could be.

A shadow passed over her book and Rei looked up irritated before noting who it was. "I've got a hold of a guy who thinks he can get that 'special' item you wanted." Kensuke said.

"The Perfect Works? I was under the impression it was quite rare." Rei said frowning, in fact, trying to find the two hundred plus, highly detailed book hard bound book on the world, history, and characters, of her obsession was the reason she had searched out Mr. Aida in the first place.

"It is, he found it in a used bookstore, the guy at the register seemed to figure out how valuable it was and is charging a pretty yen for it."

"How much?"

"Twenty thousand."

Rei thought for a moment and then nodded, "You will have it, half up front as usual."

"Good, its been a pleasure doing business with you Miss Ayanami." With that Kensuke turned and headed off towards a gathering throng of students. Rei considered the bespectacled boy and then dismissed him, his childish nature could be put up with when he had a clearly defined objective. He was quite enthusiastic and useful. Essentially he possessed all of the characteristics to be a good partner, like Kenji was for Yuki, the reliable best friend met under awkward circumstances who supported the heroin through thick and thin.

She gave a mental shake and went back to her book, none the less in deep thought, and also, deep anticipation of her greatest acquisition to date.

She was not pulled from her book until the bell rang at which point she made her way, unhurried, to class. Sat down, and immediately began to tune the world around her out as she starred out the window.

Unaware of the secrets slowly forming within her own mind.

Shinji Ikari was a boy thoroughly set in depression. Everything about him essentially exposed it to the world. He was weak, and he knew it, he was spineless, and he knew that too, else people would not tell him those things. He blinked as he felt a firm pat on the back and looked up to see Kensuke grinning. "Caught you in the act!'

"Uh, what?'

Kensuke pointed to where Shinji had been starring, his line of sight intersected exactly with Rei's form starring out the window.

"Uh, no I wasn't, its not like that!" Shinji spluttered. Secretly he knew it was true, he had found himself starring at Rei more then once by now. He just couldn't figure out such an enigma, _If she would just talk to me . . ._ He shook the thought off, Rei didn't talk to anyone . . . Accept his father. Save on rare occasions of necessity.

Kensuke grinned, tempted to tell Shinji about Rei's little obsession, but it was his duty as a provider to never reveal his clients, even when Asuka had threatened to beat him up for selling pictures of her. He had never once betrayed a client, and he took a certain, slightly morbid after Asuka's brutal thrashing, pride in it.

"I think you should just talk to her." Kensuke said, "Come on, you gotta take her or leave her." Kensuke said leaning in to whisper in Shinji's ear. "Besides eventually somebody else might get through to her after all of _your _hard work."

"Gyah! What are you implying by that!" Shinji asked startled.

"Ayanami seems to have taken a shine to you." Kensuke noted.

"What do you mean?" Shinji asked, very happy that Touji had gone to see his sister today, a combined attack from both of his friends would have been too much.

"You haven't noticed?" Kensuke asked, "I thought it was obvious, she's opened up to you more then anyone else at school, she's even walked with you a few times."

"It just because we're both headed the same way." Shinji insisted.

Kensuke shook his head, "I doubt that. Guys have tried to walk along with her but she always just picks up her pace until they're left in the dust. You're the only one she's ever gotten that close to. Do you want somebody else to walk in on your chance!" With that Kensuke grinned and held up his camera. "Its your choice but how could you give up on your big chance so easy?" The sad thing was that if a nerd like Kensuke could figure this out Shinji really was clueless.

_Do I even have a chance with Ayanami? No, she only cares about my father . . . So . . . Why don't I ask her, she'll just tell me know and I can stop worrying about it then._ Even so he hesitated, _Screw this you've killed Angels for crying out loud, you can talk to one little girl!_

Shinji steeled himself with that conviction as the lunch bell rang. He hurried quickly to Rei's desk feeling terrified as he approached her. "Ayanami?" He asked voice tight and shaking.

Rei looked up. "Yes Ikari?"

"Uhm, I . . ." His mouth went dry as he tried to think of something to say. "I . . . I . . . I . . . Imgoingtogogetlunchnow!" He blurted as his resolve disintegrated, he made a dash for the door not even looking back.

Rei frowned, she had been expecting . . . More from him than that, but what, she wasn't certain, she just felt deeply disappointed as if she knew what he had been about to say. She blinked a few times thinking about how Shinji made her feel. The small things he did out of kindness, even if that kindness was out of his cowardly nature. None of her class matesnoticed as the crimson pupils of Rei's eyes became tinged withviolet. Finaly satisfying herselfthatthoughts of Ikaricould wait until latershe turned back to her window and blinked once. As hermind drifted back to NERV. Her eyes flowed back to crimson.

Ok, now for a little bit of meaningless psychobabble to explain the situation. Rei essentially has developed the alter persona of Yuki as a way to act out the frustrations caused by the conflicting emotions she feels for both Gendo and Shinji and the injustices that her subconscious perceives. Yuki essentially can assert herself if Rei is unconscious though will not necessarily do so. Yuki may also become the dominant personality if Rei becomes emotionally overwhelmed. Conversely Yuki may change back to Rei if she experiences extreme emotional trauma or is, though clichéd, knocked unconscious herself.

Yuki is essentially a fictional entity that Rei has connected with die to similar circumstances with both being the product of artificial birth. Rei romanticizes her as a heroin and by extension this acts upon Rei's own ego by allowing her deprived imagination a medium through which to express her fantasies. The reason she is addicted to the Manga isn't just because she likes the story, but also because it creates a world with characters similar enough to her own 'real' world for her to easily transpose herself in Yuki's place. (As hinted Messiah being NERV, Commander Ralson being Gendo, Yuki being Rei, and Kensuke being Kenji) The Manga makes Rei feel good by giving her the closest thing she has ever experienced to a dream.

Eventually Rei has come to the point where she has begun to create a second personality based on the Manga character. Unlike normal fantasizing however this persona has a very practical purpose, since Rei at least subconsciously realizes that NERV is the cause of all of her pain, her Yuki persona isa weaponagainst the injustices she feels towardsNERV and is a way for heremotions to strike back at whather Yuki personaperceives as a threat much as she did the organization which created her and she fights against in the Manga.

And yes I know its been done before I can only try to do it good Right? -


	3. Volume 2

Gendo Ikari- All Evangelion related copyrights are the property of their associated studios and distribution centers. Any EVA or GeoFrontrelated technical specifications are not to be disseminated under any circumstances. Violators will be punished beyond the fullest extent of the law . . . I'm watching you.

Volume Two

Yuki . . . was annoyed, sure she had the data she had pulled from NERV's classified section the overrides had worked just like she had expected. But now the she had, it what the hell was she supposed to do with it? It wasn't like she had a computer to decrypt it on, or really all that much experience with computers, it had taken her thirty minutes to figure out a series of commands that a trained technician could have worked out in less then twenty seconds. The small thumb nail sized flash drive arced back up into the air once more before she caught it absently in her left hand.

_I need someone with at least moderate understanding of hacking, preferably someone who would be overlooked as a non threat by NERV. They have to have their own equipment, don't want this leaked in a public place. Should be trustworthy, a person who's likely to incriminate themselves along with me. Preferably intelligent, a little short on common sense is okay as long as they don't do something suicidal._

A face and name drifted through her head and she frowned slightly, ever since her first dim taste of awareness in this shared form Yuki had discovered she could sometimes read her hosts surface memories and thoughts, though she had to know what she was looking for . . . There seemed to be a very dark place in the mind she shared with the girl known as Rei Ayanami.

She considered the person for a moment, _no, no good, he isn't even an option._ But . . . there wasn't anyone else who would take the job. She was taking a look at an awfully short list when it came to people who would help her with this. It had to be person who would work with little or no pay and keep a secret. Sighing to herself Yuki slipped from her perch in a tree set atop a small hill on the outskirts of Tokyo-3, _Its sad, you can't see the stars in this place. _

Pulling her jacket a little closer to ward off the chill, the girl disappeared into the night.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Kensuke Aida sighed slightly as he flipped off the television and headed back up stairs. His father and grandfather usually didn't come home until very late, if at all. It wasn't really that bad, Kensuke was more then capable of entertaining himself. It was however lonely.

Kensuke froze as he got that feeling that he wasn't alone. If this had been anyone else they would have simply disregarded the odd sensation. But this was Kensuke Aida, military otaku of the highest degree, obviously any odd sensations were the beginnings of what would become a carefully honed soldiers sense. At least that's what Kensuke liked to believe despite his complete inability to run more than five minutes on end and failure to climb past the three foot mark on the rope in gym.

Slowly turning around he surveyed his room until he came full circle. When his gaze came back to its starting position however, he was not met by the sight of his bed and window, he was looking into a pair of painfully deep blue eyes. Blue eyes bare inches from his face, a pair of eyes were not supposed to be mere inches from one's face. His mind slowly processed this odd phenomena, firstly, the eyes were set in a face, that face was quite pretty, heart shaped and slightly tanned with lank brown hair framing it, said face was of course set on a head which was connected by a slim neck to a body. Based on what could be seen through the jacket hanging open to reveal a comfortable but revealing work shirt, it was a very shapely body.

Finally it occurred to Kensuke that such aberrations did not just materialize in one's room, leading him to the logical conclusion by a rather circuitous route that this was, in fact, an intruder. All of this went through his mind in a little under three seconds. His face which had been vacant for that time suddenly paled as his eyes widened.

"Hie." The young woman said almost mischievously as she placed one hand firmly over his mouth and another around the back of his neck. Forcing him down to a kneeling position she leaned in close. "Now then, I'm going to take my hand away, don't start shouting or I might have to do something that we would both regret. Understand?"

Kensuke nodded quickly, he had a pretty fair idea of what she meant.

"Good." She took her hand away slowly letting Kensuke take a deep breath. "Now then, it's a pleasure to make you acquaintance Mister Kensuke Aida, I'm Yuki Toyama.

Kensuke blinked stupidly, _The Manga character? . . . she does look like her . . . wait is it Ayanami . . ._ For a moment Kensuke entertained the thought that Rei might have gone overboard with a wig and some contact lenses, but there really wasn't much she could do about her skin, unless the young albino was also a make up artist this couldn't be her judging by the healthy complexion.

That didn't stop it from being some other nut with an obsession for the cult Manga's hottie main character. "Now then Mr. Aida, before you start saying that I'm insane, I have a favor to ask of you." She leaned forward smiling slightly as she pulled a small object from her jacket. "Do you know what this is?"

Kensuke leaned forward to get a good look, his hesitation momentarily forgotten. "It's a flash drive configured to mate with a standard universal serial bus."

"Good boy, now then, I have some information on this, it may be nothing, it may be big, I can't really say since I just downloaded whatever I could find in the MAGI secure database. Hacking isn't my forte but I understand that it _is_ yours."

Kensuke looked at the small flash drive in fascination, "You got that out of the MAGI!" He wasn't sure if he should jump at the chance to take a look at whatever was on it, or just laugh at something that could only be impossible. The MAGI was incredibly heavily encrypted, and as good a hacker as Kensuke was, he was still just a kid. He couldn't keep up with three seventh generation operating systems, and he had the brains not to try.

"The proofs right here, like I said it could be nothing, it could be NERV's darkest secrets. Do you want to take a look for me?"

She placed the small device in Kensuke's palm, hand lingering just long enough for him to feel just how soft and warm it was. He flushed a little as the girl bowed her head respectfully. "Please Mister Aida, I believe you may be the only one who can assist me in this, you're the only person I can think of who wouldn't just turn me over to NERV."

Kensuke nodded slowly, all thoughts of Yuki's true identity forgotten as he starred down at the small memory storage device. They were silent for a moment. "I can try." He said finally, "But I won't make any promises, this thing probably has enough encryption on it to stone wall someone way more experienced then me."

"But I can't go to anyone more experienced." Yuki pointed out a small smile running across her lips before getting up to leave. "I'm going to entrust this to you for now, I'll be back in a few days to find out what you've got . . ."

" . . . Wait . . . Who are you . . . really?" Kensuke asked, snapping out of his daze.

Yuki paused, her head bowed down and she brushed aside a strand of her brown hair, a habitual mannerism of her character. It was a good question, and after several moments of thought that left her feeling very insecure about herself Yuki finally responded. "Honestly . . . I can't really say . . . I just believe myself to be Yuki Toyama, I know that this is the identity of a fictional character, and I am aware that I cannot be her literally. But it is the identity I choose to link with myself. So . . . just call me Yuki for now. Is that okay?"

"I guess . . ." Kensuke said slowly, "If this is the real thing . . ." He held up the flash drive, "Then I'll call you whatever you want . . . but how did you get this, data from the MAGI . . . you would have to have a direct tap into their database . . ."

"I did . . ." Those words quieted Kensuke immediately. "I broke into NERV's secure database and downloaded the data physically from a secure terminal."

Kensuke's eyes swelled up in size as he began to offer something akin to a prayer to his new god.

Yuki sighed, _Just like Kenji . . . I knew he would be . . ._ "I'm going to head out now, and remember . . ." She leaned forward placing one slim finger to her lips, "Not a word to anyone."

Kensuke nodded, right, not a word, he could do that! She turned to leave again, and once more Kensuke stopped her as he asked the question he should have asked to begin with. "How did you get in here?"

"Oh that . . ." Yuki pulled a key from her jacket and tossed it to him, "Someone left a key under your welcome mat, kind of silly isn't it?"

Kensuke laughed embarrassedly, "Yeah, who would do something as cliched as put a key under the welcome mat!" _Now I have to find a new hiding place . . ._

Yuki let out a snorting laugh,". . . dork." She said with a good natured look on her face. She turned again to leave.

"Uhm, I'll lock up after you!" Kensuke said, fallowing his strange visitor down to the backdoor where she could sneak out.

"Thanks for the help Aida, I'll see if I can do anything to make it worth your while." She bowed again to him before opening the back door and slipping into the backyard. "Well . . . see you later." Before Kensuke could say anything in response she turned and disappeared into the shadows once more.

_This can't be real . . ._ He decided as he slowly closed and locked the door. _It just isn't possible . . . just not . . . just not . . . possible . . . But if it is . . . if this is real then._ Kensuke's fists clenched as his head shot up, "TOO COOL!" A cat let out a shrill cry in the distance, woken by the boy's loud shout.

Running up the stairs now Kensuke flopped himself out in front of his computer, jammed the flash drive into appropriate port and began to work. This was his chance to see NERV from the inside and he had no intention of giving it up.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

_Troubling, this is most troubling. _Gendo thought to himself as the escalator continued its decent. Section Two had reported multiple thefts that they believed to be related to the attack, further reinforcing that the attacker was likely a NERV employee. So far the list of stolen items included six kilograms of C-4, one Automatic handgun, sixty rounds of ammunition for said weapon, three smoke grenades, two fragmentation grenades, a pair of night vision goggles, and a thirty meter high tension rope, and that was just including things reported. Who knew what else had been stolen.

Gendo glanced at Rei from the corner of his eye. She had not been looking well over the past few days, her eyes were ringed from lack of sleep and her hair was in greater disarray then usual, and her clothing was disheveled. "Is there something wrong, Rei?"

The albino girl shook her head, "I have not been sleeping well."

Gendo turned to get a good look at her, and had to note that she did look quite bad. Her skin was almost sickly and she was swaying very slightly. "Are you feeling ill Rei, why have you not been able to sleep?"

Rei thought for a moment, her sleep deprived mind working out the request on then possible reasons. "It may be my apartment, sir."

"Explain."

"The heater has not worked for some time, and the noise pollution is often very distracting."

Gendo frowned, why had he not been informed of these things, though it would have been hard to believe, Gendo Ikari care at least a small amount for the girl he had made in the image of his wife. If nothing else he saw no reason to so greatly burden her physical existence. Besides which her loyalty to him would be reinforced through a kind gesture.

"I will have you moved to another complex, there are several empty rooms in the complex reserved for Section Two."

Rei felt a sudden intense discomfort at the thought of living surrounded by NERV security agents, that was odd, she did not remember any ill experiences involving section two. She forced herself to look at it rationally and then nodded, "That would be acceptable, Sir."

"Go see Doctor Akagi after the synch tests today. It is important that you be in good health."

"Yes Sir."

Gendo did not speak for several long minutes until they had almost reached their destination. "Also . . . I want you to take note of any suspicious activity within the GeoFront, we had a raid two nights ago."

Rei felt a buzzing pain at the back of her head and a sudden intense discomfort, dismissing them as simply lack of sleep she listened as Gendo continued.

"Do you understand Rei?" It was important that Rei know of this considering the number of small errands she ran behind the scenes for the Commander. Of all the people within NERV she was the only one he trusted absolutely and the only one who could be trusted now to act on his behalf. Even Fuyutsuki, the only other person to even know the outline of Gendo's plans, was a possible suspect.

"Yes Sir." Rei bowed her head respectfully, she would do her duty and assist the Commander in any way possible. If he needed her to help hunt down an intruder she would not hesitate to assist him.

Yet . . . As they stepped from the escalator she could not shake the troubled feeling building within her.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Anyways, this is mostly an experiment at doing stories in smaller chapters while releasing them at a higher rate to see if it will help with my writing. Bear with me on this and the next chapter of Under New Management will be up by sometime no later than saturday. Ironically I got a week off during spring break but couldn't spend any of it writing. I guess teachers figure if you have a week off that means they can give you a months worth of homework.


	4. Volume 3

MAGI Caspar- All data pertaining to Evangelion is the legal copyrighted property of Gainax Studios.

MAGI Melchior- With the Acception of any original characters are contents within the author owns nothing pertaining to EVA.

MAGI Balthasar- Be aware that any violations will be detected during routine security sweeps, thank you for your time and cooperation.

Volume Three

"Hey, hey Dumkopf!"

Shinji blinked and looked up, "Wha-uh . . ."

"Weren't you listening!" Asuka asked with disgust.

"Uhm, I'm sorry." Shinji said quickly, "What was it."

"Grrrrr, I said have you seen my sun dress!" She shouted in his face.

Shinji thought back quickly, not wanting the fiery German to shout in his face anymore. "No." He finally responded, "I haven't, are you sure you put it in the hamper . . . I mean I don't go in your room . . . you know . . . uhm."

"I know that dumkompf! Now where might you have misplaced it!"

"Hey!" Shinji countered, "What makes you think I'm the one who lost it, didn't you just hear me?"

"Of course." Asuka said turning her nose up to him. "After all, you're the one who does the laundry around here. I put it out for you to clean so it must have gotten lost because of you!"

Shinji couldn't escape the logic, assuming of course that Asuka had put said dress in the hamper in the first place like he had asked . . .

Cursing Asuka continued searching. Meanwhile Pen Pen sat in his fridge looking himself over in the stolen garment . . . perhaps one of Shinji's shirts instead.

Shinji turned back to thoughts concerning his life and fellow pilots in general. To be more accurate he wasn't just thinking, he was brooding. _Misato . . . _Misato was nice to him, even to the point of being kind and perhaps even loving, but it was hardly a strong relationship and it sometimes felt like he was supporting her more than her him.

_Asuka . . ._ If anything could be said, it was that she was strong. Stronger then him by a wide margin. Why was he even here anymore? Wasn't he just getting in the way? Asuka was trained for this after all, he was just some guy they had picked up off the street. That said she was also cruel, she pushed away any attempt to be friends which was about as far as Shinji would dare to go with anyone.

_Ayanami . . ._ Now there was a difficult spot for him. She was very odd, she didn't speak angrily to him or tease him or use him. She had never let him down, though admittedly he had never asked anything of her. Secretly he felt that if there was anyone he could get close to it was her. Still she was distant at the best of times. He only wished she would act a little more human.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Rei starred up at the apartment building which held her new home. It was a five story structure centered on a small courtyard and with a small park directly across from it. It was vaguely reminiscent of a college dorm with the amount of activity during the daylight hours. Section Two Agents that were off shift seemed to cling in tight groups, smoking and talking or otherwise exercising. A group of agents were busy in the adjacent park going through close combat forms.

Section Two's greatest weakness was not its poor coordination or lack of funding, it was the fact that though it did have many competent members, these skilled agents were widely spread among a formation of thugs barely capable enough to stand guard. Most of the skilled agents were assigned to guard particular sensitive sections of the GeoFront and so were put even further out of circulation. Therefore Section Two's effectiveness suffered, badly.

Rei continued to stare for a few moments before proceeding towards the building, a group of section two agents watched as she approached one of them, a young woman with short cropped red hair and green eyes, most definitely foreign, seemed to give her a thoughtful look before making to intercept the girl at the doorway. "Your Rei Ayanami right?" The woman asked taking one of the small boxes that the girl was carrying.

Rei simply starred at her, slightly agitated, the box she had taken held her collection. "I'm Corporal Millan with Section Four internal security. We've been expecting you."

Rei still didn't say anything, simply starring until the woman gave up with socialization and gestured for her to follow. The entered the building and proceeded by elevator to the third floor. The room she was shown to was at the far end of the hallway near the emergency stairs. She waited as the Agent pulled a key from her pocket and opened the door allowing her inside of her new residence.

Rei examined her surroundings quietly for a moment.

Surprisingly, the room was almost identical to her old apartment, save for being completely clean and unused. The floor was hardwood and led to a small living space, it was furnished differently from her old home, a futon rather then a bed, and a small low dresser next to it. Quite nice actually, if a bit spartan, though that didn't interest Rei at all. What did interest her was that it was dry, that was good for her collection.

"Uhm, if you need anything else I'm right down the hall, room 178, ok?" Millan was disappointed when she didn't get a response and decided to simply leave the child be, it figured, _piloting those damn things must do something to your head. _With that thought and a shrug Millan was gone leaving Rei to her own devices.

Rei began to unpack quickly, first her clothes which went into the drawers of the dresser, then her beaker and the Commander's glasses, then finally she began to withdraw her collection, all twelve volumes in their plastic dust jackets, then her four PVC figures protected in bubble wrap. Placing them all down reverently she slid open the closet and found an appropriate hiding place well back in the shadows. Placing the stack of Manga in first and then the models before covering them with a few neatly stacked blouses.

Now nobody would notice her collection if they came in to look about. _Perhaps I should purchase a safe box as well._ The thought of losing her collection to a fire was quite troubling.

With that decision made she stood quietly and went back to her unpacking, she hardly notice as she absently tucked her spare satchel into the very back of the closet not even noticing how heavy it felt. A part of her was briefly curious about the weight, but when she thought to investigate she had a strong desire to do something else. With the unpacking finished however there was little to do, she had already finished her school work and there were no synch tests scheduled. In fact Doctor Akagi had ordered her to rest for the next three days, she apparently believed the lack of sleep was due to the stress of the last few angel Attacks.

Rei wavered slightly feeling her exhaustion build once more and decided it would be best to do as she had been told. She didn't bother undressing, instead choosing to simply collapse onto the futon, closing her eyes and sinking from consciousness. This time Yuki did not take control, she was as worn as her companion and required rest just as much at the moment. Still her plans were already developing she had been given a few days to use to her advantage and those days would, be, utilized.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Kensuke starred at his screen eyes ringed and tired, his clothes were in disarray and his glasses hung half on his face as he scanned the lines of code once more. What had started as an enthusiastic hammering on his keyboard three days earlier had now died down to a systematic attack on the data's defenses. The encryption alone was proof of it being from the MAGI, nothing else could have this kind of security. The top layers were easy stuff and gave him access to some compartmentalized files, but now he was finding it almost impossible to crack, not only was the little bastard a tough nut, it was fighting back, he'd had to switch between his laptop and terminal several times now as the data's defensive programs crashed his computers. There would be many things to reformat when he was done with this, but he was enjoying the challenge . . . sort of. The fact that he didn't have to cover up his tracks so his dad didn't find out meant he could really hammer this thing, it was still slow going.

Ultimately, however, it was simply some good programming with only a limited ability to adapt against a human hacker, it couldn't hold out indefinitely. _I'm surprised there isn't a viral cipher on this thing . . ._Kensuke thought. If he had been the person to create NERV's counter hacking software he would have put a suicide Command into the programming for just such a situation. It was just another puzzle for now, he chocked it up to NERV never expecting a hack attempt on their internal network. He went back to work.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Gendo Ikari was not happy as he sat with his fingers steeped before him deep in thought as he starred at the object of his irritation. "Report Doctor, why was Rei not present for today's synch test?"

Ritsuko looked at him calmly doing her best to suppress any external hints of agitation at the cold tone her sometimes lover was using with her. She quietly stepped forward and placed a folder on the Commander's desk giving Gendo time to read the contents. It didn't take him long, there really wasn't much that needed to be said.

"Its simply stress, Rei has been spending virtually all of her waking ours either here or at school and going on short sleep, even for her that isn't healthy. Combined with the stress from the last few Angel attacks . . . I wouldn't be surprise if the other pilots are having similar problems to a lesser extent."

Gendo closed his eyes behind his glass as he considered the answer. "Give her a week to rest, she must be back on duty by then."

Ritsuko nodded, "That should be more then enough time, I would suggest lowering the number of tests for the 2nd and 3rd Children as well, we've all been run ragged from the last few attacks."

The Commander relented on her second point and instructed her to check Rei over thoroughly when she returned to active duty at the end of the week. Fortunately all of the data had been gathered on time for the Dummy Plug so the project would not be affected by Rei's absence. With this done the Commander turned back to other matters.

No more data had been found on the attacker, but all of the evidence pointed to it being someone with intimate knowledge of NERV's inner workings, someone who had to have work in the facility for a considerable amount of time. That narrowed the possible staff down considerably but even so left many.

_Still, this attack was damaging because we don't know what they retrieved . . ._ The sheer quantity of data in the MAGI secure files insured that the intruder was unlikely to have found anything vital in a random sweep but if they had accessed the dead sea scrolls data, or the data pertaining to Lilith . . . That was best not thought about . . .

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Kensuke shot up in his seat as a soft chirp went off reporting that the encryption had been broken on at least one of the files, a rather large one nearly six terabytes in size, it took up a third of the flash drives memory and was by far the largest file. Still the others had their own encryption sets and this one had been 'relatively' low security compared to the rest. He brought it up excited and frowned when he saw the title.

What did Op.DMY-PLG-REI stand for?


End file.
